Reaching the atlantic the acts that followed

So I am here in Reston, Virginia staying with an old friend of jared's, we have finished the biking part of this trip for roughly a week and a half now and have celebrated every night since the biking stopped. I have been fairly poor at updating my blog this last half of the trip so let me go back a ways, to things such as Texas.
My last full post was about our stay with Justin's second cousin on the ranch, we left a few days after that post and ended up north of austin at justin's other grandparent's house. The stay gave us some good relaxation time as well as time for some crossbow shooting. We spent roughly 4 days there and after some nice house tours and a canoe ride, we went to Houston to visit Chad. So its known we also stopped in Austin for an evening downtown, nothing much happened except a few drinks at a few bars. When we met Chad our trip took a four day cage flicks and bayou detour. All the same it was fun, and I wish I had more time to discuss the finer details, but alas there is much to speak of.
From here we knew we had about 400 mi until New Orleans and roughly 1200 mi until the Jacksonville coast. We rode at a much better pace on our way to New Orleans, made it there in five days and then relaxed in a hotel. We drank and partook in New Orleansesque activities, wish I had more time to see some of the places a little bit further out of downtown. But anyways on the morning of the third day in this hectic town it was time to leave, of course jared hadn't been seen for the last 12 hours but just as check out rolled around, Jared stumbles in the room and we pack up and head back on the road.
At this point we know we are on the last leg of the trip and and only have a few stopovers until the eastern coast. After some pretty miserable nights thanks to the humidity and the bugs we hit the southern coast near Pensacola. We stayed at a nice marina south of the Pensacola area for an evening met some interesting people and we allowed to couch surf and get a good night sleep. After that we rode along the white sand beaches of Destin and Fort Walton, which was one of the most gorgeous rides of the trip to me. This left us with about 300 mi of nothing until the coast, and you may not expect this but we made it after some long days, some nice people, and a final night sleeping in a shed.



As we rode into Jacksonville we found a bike enthusiast who said we could crash at his place. His name was Todd and he really helped us with the shipping and selling of our bikes plus guiding us a around to the ocean. From there we spent a few days figuring out everything we needed to do to finish our trip, also had a few beers and lots of pizza. But after a few days it was time to get moving so we got a ride from Todd up to Savannah, Georgia a had a day of sight seeing, (by the way Savannah is a pretty cool town). This led us to another couch to surf on and left early the next morning as we took a bus all day to Roanoke, VI we passed through states so quickly it seemed kinda of weird. We flew by both Carolinas with only a stop over on the bus ride for each of them, its ok though we had people to see and meet. Now began our trip to portion in Virginia.
At the roanoke bus station we had a our first taste of the east coast coldness, but within a few minutes we were picked up by Paige and Humera, some of Jared's friends from his days out east. We got back, had some drinks, and called it a night. the next few days involved tarantulas, one of the most beautiful river views I have ever seen, more drinking, and wonderfully beat up white chevy. I suppose I don't have time for every detail but it was a great time and left me with a good feeling of the beauty of Autumn out here.



As a side note the hike we took called dragons tooth and the car rides to and fro we some of the best parts of the trip to me.
But as a common theme of this trip after any amount of time at any place we know we have to hit the road again. And so another friend of Jared's picked us up in Blacksburg and took us back to his place in Reston. This is where I stand now, two days ago we walked around The capitol and saw all the sites and tourist attractions we could stand. Yesterday we watched the rally for sanity in the heart of D.C. and were surrounded by the massive hoards of people everywhere. We stayed in the Washington area most of the day and got a nice deal to drink all you want for $10 so we were there until about 1 and then walked back to the metro station and took the pseudo subway back home. And now we take off from here tomorrow morning with much to discuss such as how we are getting home. I think, for those of you curious, we plan to get a 15 day bus pass and slowly make our way back to Portland, Or. Anyway all will be resolved soon, but first we have the issue of Halloween to attend to.

Not much Time But quick post frOm NeW orlEAnS

Don't have much time I believe last I left you I was shooting shotguns with some of Justin's extended family. Now I am in New Orleans about to take off and should be out of the state by nightfall. I would like to divulge more but I we need to get out of here and I'm not sure when I will be ata computer next, as of now we have 500-600 miles until Jacksonville, Florida which amounts to roughly 10 days. This said I have lots of optionsand little money once I get there. All still going well, but probably to many bugs either way I have many stories in-between my last post and if I can I will try to get those down soon. Hope all is well where you are and expect further word from me when I know what I am doing and have the time to lay out the details.

Over the mountain and through the desert

We departed Laurel at Jackson Hole and after a quick walk through the town we slept on the lawn of a church near the town square. We woke up that morning to sprinklers and attempt to keep as much of our gear dry as possible. Breakfast was cream of wheat with crunch berries in a parking lot and rode out of Jackson which was fine until we hit a downpoor of rain 20 miles out. It was good way to start the whole biking process again.

Since a lot has happened since then I will go over a few things that happened en route to Texas. After the stop over in Jackson Hole we traveled over the continental divide for the first time at the togetee pass just over 9000 ft of elevation. We got snowed on for about 4 hours but with our grocery bags over our shoes and bright yellow dish washing gloves we made it over. From there we rode down into the middle of Wyoming and within minutes we were in painted rock deserts. After several hundred miles, and a few adventures in Lander we reached the town of Rawlings , Wyoming. We coincidentally met up with our old friend Aaron who happened to be driving through that area while on tour with his band. Our next destination was Boulder, Co to our next friend Becka. We had a nice stop in Fort Collins, where we couch surfed with some nice locals, tried some good vegan food and toured about the new belgium brewery then left for a quick ride down to Becka's. We spent several enjoyables days at her place and had a great time seeing the sites with her two roommates, her sister and jeremy. After potentially getting ruffied, mountain climbing the saw tooth mountains, and watching countless bad movies we left the town of Boulder. We then slowly rode down through Denver that nearly got me hit by a car and we're thrown right into a huge thunderstorm that forced us to take shelter in some random warehouse. After a few days of battleing the wind we decided to try our luck at hitchbiking. The idea started as a joke but right when 30 mph winds were hitting our face and another storm appeared on the horizon an unmarked white van stopped by the side of the road. We found out he was on his way to Amarillo our next location. Before we knew it we were hanging out with our dirver, Jerry, and his family in Texas sleeping in his fixer upper house. After a night out in Canyon with his niece and some locals we found out we could continue our hitching experience all the way to Fort Worth where we would meet some of Justin's extended family. After some house work we left with Jerry and his son and found ourselves in Fort Worth coming face to face with some more Texas hopsitality. Now I am staying at Ranch in Cleburne Texas about to shoot some skeet and hopefully see Chad in a day or two.

In case your curious we decided a ways back that we were getting poor faster than we hoped and we were running out of time for the east coast, so we decided to get as many rides as we can in Texas so as to leave time for our travels up the eastern sea board. Sorry for any grammar or spelling errors to lalazy to look back over this whole thing. The first picture up at the top is the grand tetons, the second is in the middle of wyoming during a beautiful sunset, and the last picture us jared perched on a rock up at the flat irons in Co. Hope all is well back in Newbury and if all goes to plan I might be making it all the way to Maine and still be back for Thanksgiving.
see ya

Through Montana and Rescued by Laurel

At my last post I think I was somewhere on the boarder of Idaho. That was roughly 400 miles, 10 days, and countless crazy people ago. We are at nearly 600 miles and resting in Rexburg, Idaho with our old friend Laurel who met us at West Yellowstone.
The last few days have ranged from awesome to terrible and everywhere in-between. The 12 was beautiful although not the easiest on a bike, but even with the rain and the terrible condition of the road the sites and hidden hot springs made it worth it. We ended that part of the trip with our first mountain pass through the Lolo Pass and went straight downhill to Missoula. We didn't know that it would take three very strange days to leave the town. The first night we gorged and realized to late that there was no place we could stay anywhere in town and had to come together and get a hotel. The next day was pleasant enough as we visited adventure cycling which basically is a non-profit organization for touring cyclist. Then we were picked up by some guy we met off couch surfing the whole place seemed strange at first, seeing as how all three of us were on some commune in the middle of an Indian reservation, but the place ended up being really nice and a good break from biking. We got dropped back off at Missuola in the afternoon with plans of picking up a few more supplies and taking off to get a half day. Apathy and beers stopped that idea pretty quickly, this is when we met Wolf. Wolf came huffing and puffing on bike as we drank a few tallboys at a park, he sat down by us and dedided to tell us his whole life story of drugs, murdering, and other terrible things. Aside from that he seemed like a nice guy and told us we could crash at his place, we didn't. We did go to the bars and met some nice people that let us crash on their yard. After a late morning we finally left Missoula only to have Justin and Jared forced to ride a few miles back to find Jared's gloves and camera, and Justin had to find a bike shop to fix his bike. After that we finally left the Missoula area.
Down the I-90 we traveled not much there. Stopped at Drummond the first night, it was small town but everyone was nice and the food was great. Running out of time on this computer but the rest of the way through was hard with flats in thunderstorms, running into Jersey shore party's, sleeping in baseball dugouts and being woken up to high pitched homeless people named Billy. Yesterday was tough with strong head winds but we made it to West yellowstone. And now we are hanging with Laurel going crazy all over Rexburg with plans of Yellowstone and Jackson hole. Keep you updated when more happens.

resting in Idaho/washington boarder

We're are just about a week in to our trip and we attempting to take a day off in the Clarkston Louiston area on the boarder of Washington and Idaho about to head onto the 12. The trip has been getting better with each day, or at least easier. Since i dont have the time to divulge into every ride we have I'll just talk about one in Oregon on the 730 i think it was. We rode about 30 miles straight through to Umatilla (which by the way is an awful town in my books) but on the way we just rode through endless vast dried up fields. It was actually really hot and dry and dusty, and about halfway through the rode Justin's trailer's tire pops and we have to change it and right as he is finishing up he looks back and sees a 30 foot tall dust devil heading straight for us, we all kinda scream holy shit and justins trying to get the wheel on his bike and we look around jareds already jumped on his bike and about ready to ride away without us. Luckily the mini sandstorm went around us. It was one of the more funny things to happen. The sandstorm came bike and combined with some smoke from a fire around the area. Had to bring out the bandito hankerchief to keep the dust out of my face but still a fun ride. Anyways thats a story of one of the more entertaining rides.
One of the nicest thing about this trip is that people give tons of handouts to cross country bikers already slept on some guys lawn when we couldnt find camping, and last night me and jared got about 8 beers for $5 dollars after talking to the bartender for a while. Riding has become easier i guess although at times still unbearable long and painfully hot. Not getting the greatest sleep but enough to stay up the next day, we have also been getting pretty good at conserving the right type of food without spending to much money. Lots of summer sausage and outmeal. We are about to ride into our 3rd state and ride the 12 straight through the top of Idaho over to Missoula and then down to yellowstone, that should definitely put our survivability to the test seeing as how that rode is about 200 miles of uphill with almost nothing on it. Anyway I can't type to long this time and im to lazy to check mistakes on this post but im having a lot of fun and seeing some really amazing rodes.

Oregon Trail

We left early the morning of the seventeenth and drove through to crater lake stopping by at san luis obispo and San Francisco. The drive was beautiful but very cramped no fist fights yet so thats good i guess. Driving up the 1 past SF was far more beautiful than I had expected, the sunset was blazing red but we soon ran out of gas and had to reroute back to the 101. The rest of the drive Justin and I switched driving and we rolled into Crater Lake at about 5 in the morning. We cleaned up and took a small hike to the ridge of the crater and took a couple hour nap until the sun became unbearable. The view was actually quite beautiful and I'll try to add pictures later when I can. After that we drove off the park and camped at place near Diamond Lake. After some much needed rest and a delicious hot dog over a wonderful fire. Next we drove down the 5 straight to Portland we rolled into Justin's Aunts place at about noon on the 19th. Since then we have been site seeing and finishing up collecting our last supplies. We depart tomorrow morning its suppose to rain, its good to start the trip off rough I suppose. But Portland has been wonderful to us, everything about it is beautiful sad to see it go but we need to move on at some point. I wish i could divulge more and post some pictures but I have a limited time on the computer. Finished packing so for all those curious I'll right a short list of things i'll be carrying:

-flannel, thermal, windbreaker, two wet resistant shirts, a white cotton tee, three bike shorts, a pair of jeans, some thermal bike pants, three socks, a couple pairs of boxers, a hat a beanie, gloves, wool socks, a blanket, sleeping bag, maps, obvious cosmetics, my camera, my phone and corresponding chargers, a tape recorder as my own journal, a captains log, medical supplies, a cribbage board, and most importantly some whiskey and Frisbee golf disk.

I probably forgot some important things but thats the gist of it we take off bright and early tomorrow and will have no definite place to stay until we reach Colorado so it may be some time til i come back to this blog, but keep posted I am sure I'll have some interesting things to talk about it shortly until then see ya.

sorry for poor writing in a hurry

less than 24 hours til departure

In roughly 14 hours I will be leaving the humble dwellings of my Newbury Park home. Accompanied by two old acquaintances Justin Mckelvy and Jared Loyd we will through our bikes in the back of his truck and begin the drive up to Portland for the beginning of our Cross Country bike trip. We have crater lake and the northwestern coastline to aid us in our 15+ hour drive up to the starting line. At the moment I don't have much to say since I haven't really left for the trip, but I will try to keep this updated at least 3 to 4 times a month.